Bangkok - Thailand's supreme court for political office
holders issued an arrest warrant Friday for ousted prime minister
Thaksin Shinawatra after he failed to show up to face charges in a
case involving the country's digital lottery.
It was the third warrant the court has issued for the former
premier and concerns Thaksin and 46 cabinet ministers in his former
government who allegedly discontinued a two- and three-digit lottery
scheme without due process of law.
The other 46 defendants denied all charges in court Friday and the
court said it will start examining evidence on December 22.
The same court issued a warrant for Thaksin on August 11 when he
failed to appear to face charges he abused his position as prime
minister when he allowed his wife Pojaman Shinawatra to successfully
bid 772 million baht (22.7 million dollars) for a plot of land on
Ratchadaphisek Road in Bangkok at a government auction in 2003.
The court issued another warrant on September 16 after Thaksin
failed to appear to face an abuse-of-power case involving a
4-billion-baht (118 million dollar) soft loan to the Myanmar
government in 2004 by Thailand's state-owned EXIM Bank when Thaksin
was still prime minister.
The earlier two cases have been suspended because Thaksin is not
present to hear them.
Thailand's Criminal Court has already sentenced Pojaman, who ran
Thaksin's business empire for him when he was prime minister between
2001 to 2006, to three years in prison for tax evasion.
The guilty verdict, and a host of pending corruption cases against
the former first couple, prompted them to flee to Britain after
posting bail and receiving court permission to attend the opening of
the Olympics Games in Beijing last month.
Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, was repeatedly
accused of abusing his position to benefit his family businesses and
those of his political cronies.
Using populist policies to win the support of Thailand's urban and
rural poor, and his personal wealth to win over a host of political
allies, Thaksin dominated Thailand's political scene like no other
prime minister before him between 2001 to 2005.
But his political monopoly began to unravel in January, 2006,
after he engineered the tax-free sale of his family's equity in Shin
Corp, the telecommunications conglomerate he had founded, to
Singapore's Temasek Holdings for 1.9 billion dollars.
The sale, deemed the selling off of national assets since much of
Shin Corp's operations were based on government concessions, outraged
much of Bangkok's middle class and the political elite.
Street protests against Thaksin, and signs that the political
elite wanted him out, eventually paved the way for a bloodless
military coup on September 19, 2006, that toppled him while he was
attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Thaksin spent more than 17 months in self-exile, primarily in
London, while Thailand was under a military-appointed interim
government, returning only in February this year after the
pro-Thaksin People Power Party came to power.
The party, although leading the current coalition government while
Thaksin's brother-in-law holds the premiership, has failed to stop
Thailand's judiciary from pursuing several corruption and
abuse-of-power cases against the couple.
Thaksin is again living in self-imposed exile in London.
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